<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Becoming Kin by Cloud_Portagate</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27208174">Becoming Kin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloud_Portagate/pseuds/Cloud_Portagate'>Cloud_Portagate</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But non violent, I needed to get this out of my head, Normalised childhood trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:40:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,873</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27208174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloud_Portagate/pseuds/Cloud_Portagate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Every year children come from all over Karse to Sunhame, where they begin their lives again. Father Trevor's job is to forge them into a family, even if it leaves them all in tears.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Becoming Kin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This little baby has been floating around in my head for a few weeks now, and I’m putting it down on paper as much to free up valuable mind-space as anything else. Trevor didn’t come out as hardline as I wanted, but I figure that’s OK. </p><p>Oh, and before people start screaming about him being a pervert, he’s just doing his job, he’s not taking pleasure out of it. </p><p>I don’t own Mercedes Lackey’s Velgarth universe, nor do I own Muera Rashaye’s Karse (because imnsho MR basically world-built Karse inside ML’s universe)</p><p>On to the story…<br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Father Trevor ran his eyes over the undressing forms of the new intake of novices. Most of them were afraid, and several were angry. This was the third cohort that had been brought in from this year’s Feast of the Children and, as with the previous two, the potion keeping them in near catatonia had worn off. That was important. </p><p>Most of the boys were self-consciously naked and shivering in the crisp, autumn air. This room was unheated, to provide an incentive for the more recalcitrant. It was hard for boys of these ages to stand up to peer pressure, after all. Nevertheless, they could hold out for long enough. As he did every year at this time, Trevor remembered his own induction, and having to stand in the cold for a quarter-mark before the last of his cohort had stripped down and they were allowed to bathe.</p><p>But, for all it was peer pressure that prompted the activity, the important thing was that the novices set aside their old clothes of their own accord. Everything in this process had to be done of their own free will. </p><p>Two boys were being difficult this time and glared back at him with a mix of resentment, hatred, and imminent rebellion. He looked back at them; thoughts locked behind the impassive mask he had curated for these circumstances. It didn’t take quite a full quarter-mark before the first boy gave in at the increasing restlessness of his year mates. He murmured something to the other boy and soon he, too, was stripping down. Trevor grimaced internally: both wore gold chains at their necks, and one had a bracelet as well. They would need to divest themselves of those after bathing, and that might be a new battle. </p><p>For now, though, he opened the door to the communal bathing room for the new novices. The first two intakes were undergoing a series of tests to ensure that their education levels were consistent with their ages. This lot would begin those tests tomorrow, but, for now, the bathing room was empty. As soon as the last boy was through the door Trevor closed it to let the boys sort out their own bathing arrangements. This group had spent better than a week getting to Sunhame and would probably all want to get clean of their own accord. </p><p>While they were busy- he’d told them that they had a half-mark to sort out getting clean and dry- he laid out their uniforms, neatly folded, next to each rough pile of their old clothes. This, too, was a test. Every part of this process was designed as a test. For Trevor it had been the easiest of his life. For others it was something they would resent for the rest of their days. The boys had put down their old clothes of their own accord. Now they had to pick up the new ones. And put down their trinkets. </p><p>Trevor had never had anything before he came to Sunhame from Sunbeam Brook, but he was familiar enough with the concept even then. Children dressed in their best for the Feast. Sometimes that included pieces of family jewellery, if the parents were confident in their child being passed over. Sometimes, more often, it was little pieces to make the child more comfortable or confident. Those all had to be put aside. They belonged to a world the children would never again be a part of. Alone, Trevor bared his teeth: these children had the potential to rule that world. </p><p>***<br/>
</p><p>After bathing several of the boys, including the defiant ones from before, attempted to dress in their old clothes. Peer pressure did its work again, however, as it always did, and within another half mark the children were all dressed, some still grumbling, in their clean novices uniforms: robes of unbleached wool over linen small-clothes.  Those that didn’t have personal items, at least that Trevor could see, he allowed to line up in the corridor outside the room, and let the barber know he could make a start. Trevor knew from experience how long that part could take, and it was best to start soon. </p><p>In his brief absence the two rebellious boys had bundled their old clothes in their arms and were trying the outer door. It was locked. They turned as Trevor came back in and looked guilty, but still defiant. </p><p> “Let us out,” one demanded. Trevor caught a glimpse of gold at his wrist. </p><p> “No” </p><p> “Why can’t we go on then?” Bracelet demanded. </p><p>Trevor indicated his neck, now hung with his own Sun-in-Glory pectoral. “Your jewellery,” he answered. He turned to the other three he had detained, “None of you may enter the cloisters with the trappings of your old life. You are the Kin of Vkandis now. Your old families no longer exist for you. Set down their trinkets.” </p><p>Trevor had given this speech many times, but he never tired of the children’s reactions. Oddly, given his own background, it was the ones who struggled the most with this step that he felt drawn to. He had three from last year he still kept an eye on, and countless others still in training, and fully fledged. He didn’t do much, but he made sure that they got good mentors and tried to keep them out of the paths of obvious bullies. He had sometimes wondered if it was a sort of apology for what he did to them on entering Sunhame but had since decided not to dwell on that. </p><p>The two recalcitrant boys pulled off their gold without a thought and threw it down with their bundles of clothes. Highborn. While wealthy merchants’ children came in wearing gold, they knew its value. He let the boys join the end of the queue, telling them loudly to “behave”. That should be enough to keep them in line with a few ‘I’ll tell the Father on you’s from the others. </p><p>Trevor returned to his three remaining charges. One had pulled out of his new vest a sun-in-glory made of interlocking knots, seemingly of a piece with its own chain. He looked at it mournfully, taking deep breaths, steeling himself for the act of truly setting aside his old life. He looked to be the youngest. The necklace would have been a gift from a mother or grandmother. It would hurt the boy to give it up, but Trevor could see the boy coming to the conclusion that they would never know whether he had kept it. They would never know he wasn’t allowed to keep it. </p><p>Trevor turned his attention to the other two. One wore a ring, which he was twisting on his finger with a look of agonized confusion and was looking around the room in desperate search for answers that were not forthcoming. The one place his eyes never lingered was Trevor. The other boy, the one in the middle in age, and from probably the poorest background came right up to Trevor and looked as though he wanted to ask a question. Trevor bent down. </p><p> “Do our family get’em back?” asked the boy in a whisper. Trevor looked into the boy’s eyes and he continued, “on’y my auntie, she said she cou’n’t give it me f’rever, ‘cause she needed is for sommat later on. So I gotta give n’ back.” Trevor was a little surprised. He had been attending the incoming novices for a dozen years or more, but never once had anyone asked whether their belongings were returned to the children’s former families. The truth was that they weren’t. Once they had been discarded the valuable items would go to the Church’s coffers, while good quality clothes went to the various orphanages in the city. The rest would be burned. </p><p>Out of the corner of his eye Trevor saw the boy with the sun-in-glory lay it reverentially down on his bundle of clothes and turn away hurriedly, as if afraid that he might pick it up again. But most of his attention now was fixed on the stunted eight- or nine-year-old boy who had plucked up the courage to ask if his aunt could have her silver penny back. </p><p>The boy had the coin in his hand. It wasn’t new and tarnish had built up in the ridges and grooves of the stamp marks. It had been clipped several times, devaluing it as currency. It would be melted down eventually, mixed with other debased coins to be re-cast. The coin, such as it was, had been inexpertly knotted in a four-way tie of grubby twine which had previously wrapped around the boy’s neck. It pooled now in his hand, a single loop hanging down by his thumb. </p><p>Trevor had never encountered this before, but he made up his mind what to do. “What is the lady’s name?” he asked, softly, holding out his hand. Not ‘your aunt’: this boy had no aunt. </p><p> “Auntie Lillian,” the boy whispered back, and slowly pooled the twine in Trevor’s hand, placing the coin on top with the reverence of a relic. “In Brightside.” </p><p>Trevor smiled reassuringly as he stood, coin in hand, and began to herd the three boys towards the corridor that held their peers. It was a smile that promised everything, but he said nothing. </p><p>***<br/>
</p><p>In the corridor Trevor found that the other boys had not been able to keep the troublemakers in check. One of them, it seemed, had demanded to know why they were being made to wait, and had marched through the next door, interrupting the barber who was carefully shaving the head of one of the new boys. This had not only caused the boy to jump, resulting in a nasty slash across his scalp, but begun an uproar among the others who now demanded of Trevor why it was necessary for their hair to be taken away too. </p><p>Trevor knew why. There wasn’t one simple reason, but a lot of little, powerful reasons which rolled together into necessity. Trevor’s job, at least at this time of year, was to take away the children’s pasts. He stripped them of their names, of their clothes, of their toys. But, somehow, having their heads shaved broke the boys more effectively than all of that. Even he had cried. It was hard, after all these years, to remember why, but he dimly recalled that his hair had been undeniably his own, in a way that even his clothes hadn’t been. </p><p>Shaving broke the boys alright. Hair carried smells, smells which would remind them of their former homes. Hair also carried shape, and by the time it grew out again these children wouldn’t recognize the people they had once been. And, finally, the reason he could give to calm the excited mass around him, hair carried lice and fleas and other parasites which could survive a bath. </p><p>The explanation seemed to be acceptable, but, as with every child he had seen before, each boy entered the cloister in tears. Trevor allowed himself to smile. That would unite them. They understood each other’s sorrow. Every priest, priestess, apprentice, acolyte and novice began their new life in tears. It was the common thread that made them Kin.<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>